Supernatural actor Misha Collins is no angel in Gotham Knights. Set in the seedy streets of Gotham City. The TV series opens with the murder and unmasking of Batman. In the aftermath, evidence suggests that Bruce Wayne’s adopted son, Turner, killed him to inherit his father’s wealth. To uncover the truth and clear his name, Turner reluctantly teams up with a ragtag team consisting of friends and enemies, most notably being Duela, Joker’s daughter.

Collins plays Harvey Dent, a charismatic district attorney handling the case. He cares for Gotham and wants to make a difference. Comic book readers and moviegoers, however, recognize that there’s another side to Harvey. After becoming horribly disfigured, he evolves into the deranged villain Two-Face, whose brand of justice is determined by the flip of a coin. Collins’s version hasn’t fallen down that rabbit hole, yet, but Gotham Knights will begin to expose the cracks in Harvey. Collins spoke to CBR about life after Supernatural, Harvey’s mental anguish, the Court of Owls, and the art of flipping a coin.

CBR: After being on Supernatural, what were some of the boxes that Gotham Knights checked off for you?

Misha Collins: I wanted to do a drama. I wanted to do something that was gritty, real, and grounded. I played Castiel for 12 years. Castiel feels like a family member to me now, as bizarre as that sounds. I got to really know the character and fell in love with him. He [wasn't] human, so he had these almost alien characteristics. I wanted to play somebody who had the whole range of human emotions. To be frank with you, I was a little nervous that [it] was going to be hard. I’ve been playing Castiel for so long, I wasn’t even sure I could do that. This character is not only grounded, but we are exploring an individual who is unraveling form his own mental illness and his own inner demons. That was fascinating to work on, as an actor.

There were days I got back from filming, and I was like, "I've never been so tired." It wasn't a physical day on set, just mental gymnastics. As the season goes on, my character suffers from split personality disorder. He's trying to keep the dark side personality bottled up, but the jar breaks from time to time and the other side comes out. There were times [when] we were filming, where I was having to toggle between these two characters within this one body, and it was fascinating and super-challenging and exhausting.

Aesthetically, Gotham Knights looks like something right out of the Batverse…

I like the look, too. I like the production value. It feels epic. They did a great job creating Gotham's [skyline]. It feels gritty and noir. It also checks the box of feeling it has that otherworldly Gotham quality that I really like. I can tell you the second half of the season is when it really starts cooking. I’m very happy with the first half of the season, but the second half is like, "Oh shit. That’s really good."

Even though the catalyst of the series follows Batman’s murder, it's also an origin story for Harvey Dent/Two-Face. For you, what was the core of this character?

[In] the beginning, I [saw] this character as this guy white-knuckling it through life. He is working against the tides of evil in the world. He is doing his damnedest to make the world a better place. That is a theme that played out in Supernatural. That was the same thing Castiel was doing. The challenge for Harvey is he is trying to keep evil at bay in Gotham. At the same time, he is trying to keep the evil at bay in his own self. We, as the audience, get to watch the process and can all identify with that.

We all have versions of our personal demons. Harvey’s just happen to be much stronger demons than many of us have. We end up rooting for him because he is trying so hard, but he's white-knuckling it. He is clearly a workaholic. He buries himself in work. That’s partly because he’s just trying to hide from his own traumatic past. This is a coping mechanism for him.

Harvey Dent was Bruce Wayne’s best friend. How conflicted is he about suspecting Bruce’s adopted son, Turner, for his father’s murder?

The audience knows in the very first episode that Turner has been framed. He is not the murderer. There is evidence pointing to Turner being the murderer. In his heart of hearts, Harvey knows that Turner is not the murderer. While his public self is saying they are going after Turner, because that is the political expedient thing to do, the truth is he is trying to figure out who truly killed Batman.

Between Harvey’s mental health and Turner under fire, what were your thoughts on the themes of duality and the manner the show leans into it?

Certainly, with my character, it’s very much about duality. That is also part of canon for my character. The Harvey Dent character is one embodiment of good and evil. As the show unfolds, we are watching the forces of good and evil at play. That question lives more in Harvey than anywhere else in the show. Each character wrestles with whether to make deals with the devil and whether the end justifies the means in given scenarios.

How worried is Harvey about the Court of Owls?

It takes a while for the Court of Owls to emerge as a real threat for Harvey. The Court of Owls is this mysterious cabal of nefarious power brokers, who are pulling the puppet strings behind the scenes in the city of Gotham. We don’t know who they are. We don’t know what their motives are. All of those factors combined make Harvey a bit dubious at first. Who are these people? Are they even real? What’s going on? That is exactly what the Court of Owls want. It takes a while to get there.

Two-Face’s shtick involves flipping a coin. Is there any foreshadowing in that? How much of a challenge was that for you to master?

It’s funny. In the pilot episode, there was something in the script about Harvey picking up the Court of Owl’s coin, which was found on Bruce Wayne’s dead body. It said that he rolled it across his knuckles. I spent a lot of time rolling a quarter across my knuckles. At first, I was like, "I will never be able to figure this out." I finally got it. I got it pretty smooth and then the day we were filming it, the prop master brought me the Court of Owl’s coin, which is about two times wider than a quarter. It took me about five seconds to realize, "Oh yeah. That skill doesn’t translate to a much bigger coin. I have to start the process of learning how to do this over again." So, while it was scripted, Harvey did this cool coin trick in the first episode. Ultimately, we had to cut that because of an inept actor who was unable to do it. Then, as the season unfolded, I worked on it quite a bit. Then, the script never called for it again. There is coin flipping, but there is not that cool knuckle-rolling.